(via 43folders, photo originally uploaded by Tim Morgan)

There seems to be some growing consensus on multitasking being bad for productivity. The basic argument against multitasking goes like this (via Theory of Constraints Blog):

“Multi-tasking is the act of stopping a task before it is completed and shifting to something else; in software development the term “thrashing” is often used to describe this practice. When a task is stopped and started there is the immediate effect of a loss of efficiency. Each time a person has to re-start a task, time is required to become re-familiarized with the work and get re-set in where he was in the process. It is very much like the physical set-ups done on a machine in production. Each time you tear down a machine to do another task, you have to set it up to run the part again.” (Emphasis added)

Now I do believe that this problem applies to a lot of different tasks. However, there are important exceptions, where multitasking in fact is going to boost productivity. Which are they?

Firstly, let’s conceptualize tasks as problems. So working on a task means to solve a specific problem.
There are essentially two types of problems (as distinguished by Cognitive Psychologists):
1.)Well-structured problems and 2.) Ill-structured problems.
Well-structured problems are characterized by clear solution paths: Say you want to setup Wordpress on a server. You’re familiar with the necessary steps involved in the process + there is a clear order in which these steps have to be taken.
Ill-structured problems lack this clear solution path - examples would be writing an essay or coming up with a good claim for an ad campaign: there is clearly not one way to tackle these tacks, the problem “space” is much less defined as it is with well-structured problems.

My point here is that it is those ill-structured problems where multitasking can be put to good use, while the opposite applies for most, if not all, well-structured problems (or tasks, for that matter).

Here is why: While solving a well-structured problem, you work your way through the problem space in a linear fashion, meaning you have to stay focussed on your progress and the upcoming steps. Re-switching to this task (after you’ve switched to another in between) will almost always cost time to figure out exactly at which step you’ve been before leaving the task, ultimately slowing down your performance on all tasks.

This is different for ill-structured problems, where the solution often requires something psychologists call “insight” - a sudden idea of how to tackle the task. In many cases, this “insight” will transform a hard problem into a relatively easy one. Yet the hardest part is to have this insight and many fail at this, simply because they try to solve these problems just like they solve the well-defined ones, i.e. in a linear fashion.
Yet the best way to insight is to view a problem from as many different perspectives as possible. You need to be able to readjust your perception of it until the solution path “finds you”, not necessarily the other way around.
In these cases it often is actually good to work on something else in between, e.g. finish (!) one of your well-defined tasks, and then to get back to the ill-structured problem.
The change of perspective, which is a bad thing to have for any well-defined task, is exactly what you need when solving problems where the solution requires a certain amount of creativity.

So my suggestion is simple:

When it comes to well-structured tasks - do them one by another.
If you’re stuck working on ill-structured tasks, do not “try harder”, but interrupt them with other things. Doing something else and getting back to them later just might be the best way to solve them.

Here is a very simple example of a ill-structured problem (from “Cognitive Psychology” by Robert Sternberg):

A woman who lived in a small town married twenty different men in that same town. All of them are still living, and she never divorced any of them. Yet she broke no laws. How could she do this?

If you don’t find a solution immediately, go answer some of these emails and check back again afterwards

: multitasking, productivity, psychology, problem solving

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